Maternal Epigenetic Transmission of Social Motivation in Birds

Formanek, Laureline; Houdelier, Cécilia; Lumineau, Sophie; Bertin, Aline; Richard‐Yris, Marie‐Annick

doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.2008.01536.x

Cited by 34 publications

(38 citation statements)

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“…This test is an adaptation of the treadmill test (Mills & Faure, 1990) that evaluates subjects' motivation to reach a social stimulus (Formanek et al, 2008). This test is an adaptation of the treadmill test (Mills & Faure, 1990) that evaluates subjects' motivation to reach a social stimulus (Formanek et al, 2008).…”

Section: Procedures To Assess Socialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We first evaluated the behavioral characteristics of mothered and non-mothered females using well-established ethological tests (Bertin & Richard-Yris, 2004;Forkman, Boissy, Meunier-Salaün, Canali, & Jones, 2007;Formanek, Houdelier, Lumineau, Bertin, & Richard-Yris, 2008). Our model is Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica), a domestic precocial bird.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Motherless quail mothers display impaired maternal behavior and produce more fearful and less socially motivated offspring

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Houdelier

et al. 2013

Developmental Psychobiology

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Early maternal deprivation impairs the behavioral development of young individuals. Recently, strong differences between mothered and maternally deprived chicks have been reported concerning their emotionality, sociality, and spatial skills. Here we investigated long-term and cross-generational impacts of maternal deprivation by comparing the characteristics of the non-reproductive and the maternal behavior of 22 mothered and 22 non-mothered adult female Japanese quail (Coturnix c. japonica) and by comparing the behavior of their respective fostered chicks. We reveal that non-brooded mothers were more fearful and less competent in spatial tasks and expressed impaired maternal care, characterized by more aggression towards chicks, higher activity rates, and more abnormal pacing during the first days of the care period. Chicks' behavior was clearly affected by maternal care inducing strong differences in their fearfulness and social motivation. Our results show both long-term and cross-generational impacts of early maternal deprivation in precocial birds.

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Section: Procedures To Assess Socialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motherless quail mothers display impaired maternal behavior and produce more fearful and less socially motivated offspring

Pittet

Bot

Houdelier

et al. 2013

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…Thus, adoptive mice mothers affect the development of fearfulness in their male, but not in their female, offspring [14]. Maternal effects on the development of mammals' and birds' social or sexual preferences appear stronger in male than in female offspring [8], [9]. Anisman et al [15] reported a difference in sensitivity of young mice to maternal effects in relation to genetic origin: pups from the higher emotional reactivity line were influenced more by maternal care than were those from the lesser reactive line.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Development of Fearfulness in Birds: Genetic Factors Modulate Non-Genetic Maternal Influences

et al. 2011

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The development of fearfulness and the capacity of animals to cope with stressful events are particularly sensitive to early experience with mothers in a wide range of species. However, intrinsic characteristics of young animals can modulate maternal influence. This study evaluated the effect of intrinsic fearfulness on non-genetic maternal influence. Quail chicks, divergently selected for either higher (LTI) or lower fearfulness (STI) and from a control line (C), were cross-fostered by LTI or STI mothers. Behavioural tests estimated the chicks' emotional profiles after separation from the mother. Whatever their genotype, the fearfulness of chicks adopted by LTI mothers was higher than that of chicks adopted by STI mothers. However, genetic background affected the strength of maternal effects: the least emotional chicks (STI) were the least affected by early experience with mothers. We demonstrated that young animal's intrinsic fearfulness affects strongly their sensitivity to non-genetic maternal influences. A young animal's behavioural characteristics play a fundamental role in its own behavioural development processes.

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“…Further, hypothalamic differential gene expression correlated between day 28 and 213 in males, but not in females (Elfwing et al, 2015). Also in quail, maternal behaviour characteristics have been shown to transmit to the offspring, with emphasis on social reinstatement behaviour (Formanek et al, 2008), further proving potential transgenerational effects of stress. To gain more knowledge on transgenerational effects of stress in chickens during different life phases, this was investigated in paper III with a specific angle towards pubertal stress.…”

Section: Transgenerational Effectsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Stress hos höns : Effekter av domesticaring och tidig stress på beteende och välfärd

Ericsson¹

2016

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The domestication is the process where animals have adapted to human conditions. A prerequisite for domestication is tame behaviour towards humans and subsequently, selection for other desirable traits took place which led to changes in several behavioural and physiological parameters. The domestication of chickens (Gallus gallus) was initiated around 8000 years ago, and today we see clear phenotypic and genotypic alterations when comparing domestic breeds with the wild ancestor. Our modern domestic production breeds have been selected for, and still undergo heavy selection for high meat and egg yields. Beside obvious morphological changes, studies investigating behavioural differences between the ancestral Red Junglefowl and domestic breeds show, for example, differences in fearfulness, foraging strategies, exploratory behaviour and sociality. The modern production environments are intense and already from hatch chicks are exposed to harsh conditions. From an animal welfare perspective, the production environment contain many stressful aspects. The shift in stressor types between wild and captive conditions have likely contributed to alterations in stress tolerance when comparing domestic breeds to the wild ancestors. Previous research on mammalian models have underlined that early-life stressor exposure can induce negative consequences both immediately and in adulthood, but can also affect the offspring in a transgenerational fashion. The effects observed are for example disturbance of normal brain development, a hyper-reactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) -axis, decreased immune function and increased risk of developing cognitive dysfunction and abnormal behaviour. In chickens, the long-term effects of stress during the chick phase and during puberty are not well-investigated, and further, conflicting data has been presented on the hatchling HPA-axis reactivity.In this thesis, results from four projects are presented, which all concern stress and welfare at different ages in chickens. The development of the HPA-axis and how chicks respond to early stress both on the short-and long term was investigated. Furthermore, an experiment on the effects of stress exposure a different ages during puberty was conducted, in search of particularly stress-sensitive periods. Two papers address domestication effects on the stress response.In paper I, the results show that the HPA-axis is fully functioning at hatch, resulting in elevated corticosterone levels at exposure to stressful conditions. Breed differences indicate domestication effects on the reactivity and development of the HPA-axis; the Red Junglefowl displayed a lower corticosterone baseline and a lower stress response on day one, compared to a domestic breed, whereas the results were the opposite on day 23. Similar results were seen in paper IV, conducted on adult birds, where the Red Junglefowl had a more pronounced reaction to acute stress but a faster recovery period, both with respect to behaviour and physiology. In commercial hatcheries, chic...

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Maternal Epigenetic Transmission of Social Motivation in Birds

Cited by 34 publications

References 38 publications

Motherless quail mothers display impaired maternal behavior and produce more fearful and less socially motivated offspring

Motherless quail mothers display impaired maternal behavior and produce more fearful and less socially motivated offspring

Development of Fearfulness in Birds: Genetic Factors Modulate Non-Genetic Maternal Influences

Stress hos höns : Effekter av domesticaring och tidig stress på beteende och välfärd

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